July 04 09

Shooting Animals

Every morning I drive past the airport at around 7:00 am, on my way to work.  A couple of weeks ago, the farmer who uses the fields in that area decided to put about 15 black and white Holsteins out to pasture near the road.  In the early, golden light, the cows and the yellow grass look very picturesque, and I’d been telling myself I would stop one morning and snap a few shots.  The other day, bringing my camera coincided with having a few extra minutes, and I pulled over.  The cows were quite close to the fence.  Not too close, as I was using a telephoto that can’t focus on anything nearer than 1.4 metres, but not too far either.  Perfect.  I skulked up to them slowly, not wanting to disturb them.  I wanted to get them in their natural habitat.

A few of the cows looked up at me from grass chomping, and stepped away, eyeing me cautiously.  I froze, and then inched forward. Please don’t run away.   I started to shoot.  At first nothing happened.  They were going about their bovine business, looking up once in awhile to see what I was doing, mildly interested.  Then suddenly, almost telepathically and all at once, they started barreling towards me, mooing, chomping and slobbering.  So much for being sneaky.  They were practically tripping over each other with enthusiasm and curiosity.  I didn’t move.

After the chaos of getting to the fence settled down, the whole herd lined up nicely along it and posed for their photo.  They were craning their necks towards me, I imagine looking for food.  They were stretching their long tongues towards me, big eyes rolled forward.  Cars driving by honked, and someone rolled down their window and shouted something I didn’t understand.  It must have looked hilarious.

With only a few minutes to get to work, I got back into my car, and prepared to leave.  The cows didn’t move.  I had 30 eyes glued on me.  I drove off, and with one last look in my rear view mirror, I saw that they still hadn’t budged, and were all watching me leave.  Something tells me I’ll probably go back and visit them again.  Cows are huge, gentle creatures that, like horses can have a lot of personality.  They enjoy human contact, and I’ve heard can actually make quite good pets.  However, living in a condo means I’m not in the market for one.  In another life, I think I’ll own a farm.

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